Ten years after my first trips to Buffalo State Hospital a post from Preservation Works popped up in my facebook feed, advertising tours of the state hospital. Having retired from a lot of the sneaking around that characterized my earlier exploring efforts, any opportunity to get in to an abandoned building with permission was something I could not refuse.
You can read more about the history of the Richardson Olmsted Campus in my first post on the place.
Gaining access to a Kirkbride with my Fuji GFX 100S was a dream come true. The camera’s dynamic range and the outrageous sharpness of the native lenses with the 100MP sensor easily make it the best camera I have ever used. On this trip, I had not yet gotten a hold of the Fuji GF 35mm f5.6 Tilt Shift lens, but I was able to adapt my old Canon 24mm f3.5 Tilt Shift to get a few critical shots.
For this set, I used the RNI Film Presets for Lightroom. I struggle with plugins like this because it seems…fake. When I was editing the set and messing with the presets I decided that they were giving me more of the look I wanted and the feeling I wanted to convey with the shot. I’m a fine art photographer, so that should always be the main focus, but I am also a technical guy and sometimes get too hung up on things being “accurate” or “real”.
